That Never Happened.

At the beginning of Joanna Russ's book, The Female Man, she has a quotation which talks about the various ways men silence women.

One of the main ways is to discount their experience. To say, in effect, that never happened. Don't be silly. You're exaggerating. I don't remember it like that.

I have (almost entirely) stopped blogging about my family here, because, well, the flak I get afterwards from them IRL isn't worth it. But I find I'm compelled to blog on this one.

Over on FB, my brother -- the one I like best -- and I got into a wrangle about the Tosh incident.

I posted a link to another of Tosh's very funny rape jokes, this one with several boys sexually assaulting another boy, with a header that suggested I found it shocking anyone could find Tosh amusing when he was making this kind of joke.

My brother asserted, basically, that one bad joke didn't make a bad comedian.

I argued back (a) not one joke and (b) rape jokes were different from "bad" jokes.

It went downhill from there.

Now reasonable people can disagree, clearly. But here is why I can't let go of this argument.

I made the point, to him, that Tosh had used the "joke" of raping the woman in his audience to silence her. I argued that this is how rape gets used in our culture fairly often -- as a tool to silence and oppress women. I said that I -- like many women in America -- had been threatened with rape by random strangers as well as by guys I knew almost constantly from the time I was eleven years old; I said that he (he's six foot four and hefty) could have no idea what that was like.

He said, "I'm sorry you let fear rule your life."

He said, "Seriously, you've been threatened with rape since you were eleven? By whom?"

And when I got more specific (listing an example, one out of about ten thousand, of the very first guy whoever yelled out of a car window at me, when I was eleven years old, "Hey, cunt, want to get fucked?"), he said, "Really? When?"

Because, you know, that never happened. Don't be silly. You're exaggerating.

I am really incapable of communicating how angry I am at the moment.

Even though, you know, this is nothing new. How many times has this happened -- not just to me, of course: to any woman who tries to talk about this to men. To any person of color who tries to talk about racism to white people. To any LBGTQ who tries to talk about their experience to a straight person.

You know, because it didn't happen to him, he didn't get stalked by guys in malls, he didn't learn he had to watch his surroundings constantly, he didn't get chased by guys in trucks when he rode his bike, he didn't get get cornered in a bar by someone who was his classmate in graduate school -- supposedly his intellectual peer -- and have his tits grabbed, told he had to give it up or he was a frigid bitch -- these things didn't happen to him, so they didn't happen.

I'm exaggerating. We all are.

From the Everyday Sexism site:

...last Sunday the Olympic torch was in Trinity Great Court. Students, staff and fellows had to obtain tickets well in advance of the event to stand on the grass and soak in the atmosphere (maybe a bit of rain too), welcome the Olympics, and watch the Olympic torchbearer take one lap around it. I hear there is a reference to the Chariots of Fire in there somewhere. The nominated torchbearer was a girl of around 16, maybe 17 max. Cheerful, sweet, incredibly enthusiastic, with her entire family gathered to watch. As soon as she was handed the flame, a middle-aged man from the crowd (I presume still drunk from the night before) yelled at her at the top of his voice- "Get your tits out for the lads". My boyfriend and I were too stunned to react, and by the time we both checked with each other we weren't hallucinating, he had run off. He was within earshot of security, cameras and crowds of people. No one budged.

Challenged a (male) friend the other day for posting a cartoon of a buxom lady with the caption 'What's worse, me or a mosquito? Me, because a mosquito stops sucking when you slap it.' His friends rallied to his defence, including a woman (and several young women 'liked' this pic, on Facebook).

cycling home when white van drives slowly next to you while a man oggles & says ‘need a hand sweetheart’

Walking home at night is something I avoid now. After I was honked at multiple times, stopped by a stranger in a car, and chased down by a drunk who thought following me would be a good idea, I don't feel safe anymore. It's a sad world.

Going Through the (Right) Channels

This, from over at Unfogged again, disturbs me for many reasons, not the least being that, a few semesters ago I had a situation, not nearly this serious, play out in a way that made me at the time uneasy.

It was a young woman in one of my classes who came to me for help -- a fellow student, male, in the same class, was sexually harassing her: he'd hit on her, and she had turned him down. Since then he had been sending her dozens of text messages (they had been in the same study group in another class, so he had her text address) every day, including all night long; and he was sending her photographs of himself, including nude photographs; plus he kept sitting behind her in class; she had gotten her friends to sit around her so he couldn't, and now he would sit across the room from her and made faces at her; and frankly, she wanted it to stop. "I'm thinking about dropping the class," she said, "but I need it to graduate."

I told her not to drop the class, that if necessary we would make him drop the class; that we would handle it. And I went to my chair.

Who told me that it was not an academic matter. That we would pass it on to the Dean of Students.

Who told us that the girl would have to talk to the university police about it. That he could do nothing.

The chair told me I could not talk to the kid about it. Because it wasn't an academic matter.

When I had to tell the girl that she had to go the police -- that the Dean of Students was not going to give her any help -- I remember feel like filth. I did offer to go to the police with her, but she said no, she would handle it. I told her she might go to the Dean of Students and talk to him (figuring he'd be less cavilier listening to the details in his office) but she just walked away.

Probably it wouldn't have made any difference anyway.

She didn't drop the class. And as far as I know nothing happened to him.

At the time I attributed the problem to just a jurisdictional problem -- we were caught in the bureaucracy. Now, though, I am not so sure.

Kitty!

If I'd known how charming kittens were, I would have caved into the kid's wheedling long ago.

This thing is seriously cute.  Mind you, we're all covered with tiny scratches, from where it has pounced upon us a bit too enthusiastically when it's showing us its Jasper The Mighty Hunter skillz; but none of us actually mind.

Today, when Herr Dr. Delagar and I returned from Harps, I called the Kid in to the kitchen.

The Kid: What?

Me: Look! (I showed her the new cat toy I'd bought, a little felt ball with a tail.)

The Kid: (Rolling eyes):  Every time you go out you come home with a toy for Jasper!

Me:  Yes, well.  He's my grandkitten.  Just wait until you have an actual child.

The Kid:  She.  She.  SHE is your grandkitten.

Me:  Sorry.  You should have given her a more girly name.

The Kid:  Don't be so heteronormative, Ma.

Me:  Are you going to bring the kitty out to play with the new toy or what?

But Girls Just Like Pink!

You'll remember our sweet Con Iggulden, he of The Dangerous Book For Boys, who insisted, along with half the (conservative)(and home-schooling) world that he was not a misogynistic sexist, that little boys were just different from girls, that was all, and in his vast experience as a teacher he had come to realize that modern day schooling and childrearing was destroying boys, trying to turning hearty tough little boys into girls, just because the feminists and nasty teachers liked it that way, and so on, et cetera, you've heard this song before.

Well, he's back.

I open one of the catalogs I used to buy Hanukkah presents for the kid from, because it had cool toys, puzzles and kits and art supplies, and what do I find?  Yes, indeed.  On one page, The Dangerous Chemistry Set For Boys.

On the opposing page?  Spa Science, for girls.

Because, see, boys want to do chemistry, and be scientists.  Girls want to make perfume and facials and bubble bath.

I swear, this country was more evolved in 1910 than it is now.  Go read Dear Enemy and tell me I'm wrong.